


waltz of boys in the moonlight

by matsuhanasss



Category: Banana Fish (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Alternate Universe - Royalty, M/M, Mentions of Beatings, Mentions of Stabbing, Stabbing, ash lynx is a prince, but not on who you think it is, eiji is not royalty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-27
Updated: 2020-08-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:41:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26132080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/matsuhanasss/pseuds/matsuhanasss
Summary: eiji okumura learns how to waltz
Relationships: Ash Lynx/Okumura Eiji
Comments: 6
Kudos: 80





	waltz of boys in the moonlight

**Author's Note:**

> hellloooo ao3 nationnnnnn
> 
> how r uuu? 
> 
> bet ure wondering abt the fact i posted two fics in a row ! yea me too <3
> 
> anyway. i'd like to thank [jules](https://twitter.com/mitsofu/) for listening to me talk abt this and read a ton of the scenes beforehand and help me out !!! ilysm !!!!
> 
> anyway . hope u enjoy <3

Eiji is thirteen years old when he meets Ash Lynx. 

The palace feels hugs, the corridors longer than anything Eiji has ever seen—ever been in. They seem to stretch for miles and the throne room seems more open than anything Eiji has ever seen. But that’s really all Eiji remembers. He doesn’t remember his parents talking to the queen and king, he doesn’t remember the reason he was left in the care of the king and queen, but what he does remember is Ash’s regal stance. Even at eleven years old, he seemed proud to be a prince. Eiji would learn, later, that he wasn’t. That Ash hated being a prince and if he could, he would have been a commoner just like Eiji. But we’re getting too ahead, there. 

He’s thrown into the royal palace with no footing. He stumbles and he gets whipped and he gets punished for screwing up, which he happens to do often. One night—a quiet night when he’s been there for months and he’s starting to lose track of the days—he finds himself in a long, marble floored corridor. He’s humming a song to himself as he tries to teach himself how to waltz, pretending there’s another person in front of him. The song he’s humming does not have the beats to the waltz as it should, alas he doesn’t stop. When he stumbles once again, he hears a voice.

“Your footing is wrong.”

Startled, he looks up.

“And the song you’re humming isn’t a waltz.” It’s the prince. Eiji feels his blood go cold as the prince walks towards him, hearing Ash’s bare feet slap gently against the marble floors. Eiji wants to run, but he’s hit the freeze response instead. Instead of walking past him to tell someone, Ash stops in front of him, grabbing Eiji’s hands, placing one in his hand and one on Ash’s bicep. 

“Straighten your spine and follow my lead,” Ash says. Eiji straightens his spine as best he can before Ash is leading them in a waltz, perfected by hours of class. They waltz for what feels like an eternity, but are probably only minutes, before Ash finally lets go and gets back to his original plan. 

“Meet me here again tomorrow.”

The next day, their waltz lessons continue. 

Eiji feels small compared to the prince, who’s taller than him and seemingly more mature. While Eiji feels like he is stumbling around with rocks weighted to his ankles, it seems like Ash is light on his feet. It seems like there is nothing holding him back. Eiji feels jealous, almost—jealous how Ash has it easy, how he lives life so effortlessly.

They waltz.

Fifteen years old treats Eiji differently than thirteen and fourteen did. 

By fifteen, Eiji had perfected a waltz. He moves light on his feet as Ash holds his hand and the small of his back in the marbled corridor, which gets smaller and smaller with each passing year. But fifteen comes with its own hardship of finding the palace too small and suffocating to stay in. Of course, it’s not small or suffocating—rather it’s endless and as breathable as it will ever get—, but Eiji wants out, Even for just a night.

“You’re footing is off.”

“Hm?” Eiji hums, voice soft as he snaps his attention back to Ash. They’re slowing down.

“What are you thinking about?” 

“Nothing.” The lie rolls off his tongue smooth, like butter. Ash’s hands fall from him, laying limply at his sides. Suddenly, Eiji feels exactly like he did when Ash caught him waltzing in the corridor for the first time. Nothing but a child with weak knees and the will to cry. 

“Don’t lie,” Ash says, voice cold. Eiji flinches—a cold voice brings nothing but memories of lashings and screaming. Ash’s eyes soften and his fingers curl into a fist. Eiji takes a step back. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

“How do I know that?”

They still meet the next night.

It’s quieter, something is off with the energy, but they move together in perfect sync. Ash’s hands loosen at one point and Eiji nearly lets go completely. They may be moving—a breath of fresh air from the work he’d been doing. Moving in a way that’s calming to him—, but there’s something irrevocably off tonight that Eiji feels like he’s choking. Ash speaks.

“What’s wrong?”

“Everything,” Eiji says.

Ah. There it is.

“Everything?”

“I feel like I’m drowning.” They step.

“In a palace as big as this?” They spin.

“It can begin to feel like the ocean, you know.” One.

“I suppose,” Ash says. They don’t stop; Eiji thinks that this waltz has become as easy as breathing to him. Ash is thirteen, but he feels more well-spoken than Eiji ever will. 

“What’s so suffocating about these walls?” Ash asks. Eiji huffs a laugh.

“Everything.”

“Is that the answer to all my questions?”

“You’ve been here for thirteen years, confined only to the palace. Don’t you get a little tired of looking at the same gold pillars and marble floors?” Eiji asks. Ash meets his eyes and Eiji feels like he’s crossed a line. 

“Yes.” Step two, three. Step two, three. 

“I think we should call it a night.” They continue to dance. 

When they finally stop, Eiji’s hands feel sticky with sweat. He trudges back to where he sleeps and lies there. He lies awake for hours, until, finally, he can’t keep his eyes open anymore. When he closes them, he thinks of jade green eyes and a waltz song he hasn’t heard. 

“Follow me,” Ash says one night. Eiji follows, knowing no better, footsteps quiet and light behind Ash’s. He follows Ash’s lead, where he ducks, Eiji ducks too. Finally, Ash leads him to the garden. Eiji has seen the garden very few times, much less this close. He’s not one of the boys who works on the gardens, so he watches from afar as he carries things in sometimes. His feet are cold against the moonlit grass and Ash takes his hand. He leads him to a quiet, tucked away corner of the garden. There, Ash grabs Eiji’s hands and places them where they are necessary for a waltz.

“Why?”

“You said you were drowning.” Eiji looks up at Ash in surprise. The prince isn’t looking at him, rather he looks thoughtfully at their interlocked hands. 

“What’s it like? Being a prince?” Eiji asks. Ash looks startled for a minute, the facade that claims him the second afterward seems so fake. There’s a wall blocking them, Eiji thinks. There’s a wall blocking him from the real Ash. He wonders who made Ash build that wall.

“Boring,” Ash says. He still leads the waltzes, even after all these years. Eiji never asks for a turn, too afraid to even think of leading a waltz. The thought of leading Ash in a waltz is horrifying; the thought of screwing up is just so terrifying. It makes Eiji’s stomach churn. 

“Boring?”

“Meetings this, meetings that, be the perfect son, get married soon. It’s the worst.”

“Hm.”

“What are you thinking about?”

“Nothing.”

“You know, I’d like to get into that head of yours one day,” Ash says. The sincerity laced in his voice is almost frightening to Eiji. Like Ash plans on letting Eiji stay there forever. 

“You will,” Eiji says, and he believes it.

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

They waltz outside the next night, too. And then the next night. And the night after that. They waltz outside to Eiji’s sixteenth birthday, where the moon shines on Ash’s blonde hair and makes it such a pale blonde Eiji would mistake it for white if he had not known. The moonlight makes Ash’s skin like milk. Eiji stumbles.

“What are you so focused on?”

“You,” Eiji says. It sounds bad, but he doesn’t regret saying it. They slow until they’ve completely stopped. 

“Me?” Ash asks. Eiji gives a firm nod. “Hm.”

“What?”

“I can’t figure you out,” Ash says. Eiji blinks and raises his brows. 

“What do you mean?” Eiji asks.

“You’re like an impossible puzzle. Every time I think I’m close to completing the puzzle, I lose another piece. But, with you, I gain a new piece and it always throws me off my feet,” Ash says, choosing his words carefully. His hand is still clasped in Eiji’s palm, while his other hand rests on the small of Eiji’s back. 

“I thought I was rather simple to figure out,” Eiji says, a brow raised. 

“Me too.”

Step two, three. Step two, three. 

Eiji’s seventeenth birthday goes quietly.

“Let’s waltz inside. In the corridor, where I met you first,” Eiji says.

“You’d met me before that.”

“I didn’t know you before that.” The statement startles Ash. There’s a flash in his eyes and Eiji watches his shoulders tense. But something must offset him back to relaxation, because his shoulders fall and he’s once again just a boy waltzing with Eiji. His hair is longer than when they first met, Eiji notices. He’s grown into his looks, skinny and tall, but filling out his face. It’s something he’d never noticed before, but now that he really looks at Ash he can admit how beautiful he is. He can understand why all the servant girls and some of the servant boys fawn over him.

They’d be jealous to learn about their midnight waltzes. Maybe jealous enough to kill.

The thought makes Eiji’s palms clammy. 

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Eiji asks.

“You’re in your head again,” Ash says. Eiji huffs. “What’s it about this time?”

“Nothing. Don’t worry about it,” Eiji says. It’s the first time Eiji hasn’t told him the truth in a year. Ash narrows his eyes, but doesn’t stop moving. He’s decided not to push Eiji tonight. 

“Why did you want to learn how to waltz?” Ash asks. 

“I don’t know.” It’s an honest answer. Eiji doesn’t know why he wanted to learn how to waltz; he didn’t know why he wanted to do a lot of things. Ash hums and spins Eiji. 

“I’m glad I got to teach you.”

Eighteen is uneventful. Then, there’s nineteen.

Eiji’s first real waltz. A waltz to music.

It’s a palace ball, which they have often enough. Weeks ago, Eiji had admitted to wanting to waltz for real. To a song, not just the silence of his and Ash’s footsteps in the corridor or the sound of grass moving against their feet. Ash had promised him one after that. Eiji found that strange, for Ash wasn’t one to make promises. 

But, when the waltz music begins, Ash is waiting for him in the corridor. Like he promised.

“May I have this dance?” Ash asks, extending a hand with a smile on his face. Eiji giggles, doing the worst courtesy he thinks is possible.

“You may.” Eiji takes Ash in. He’s in fine clothes—he always is, but these are different—meant for a royal ball. He wonders how he got out of the ballroom with no one noticing. Then, he thinks, he’s not too surprised. Ash is quite mischievous. He knows his way around the palace better than anyone else, Eiji thinks. 

“Thank you for this,” Eiji says softly. Ash looks down at him, a smile soft on his face.

“It’s better than being in there. They’re trying to find me a suitor.”

“But wouldn’t you like a suitor? One arranged to you?” Eiji asks as Ash leads him in the waltz. Ash doesn’t stumble, but Eiji feels Ash’s hand grip his tighter for a moment.

“I’d rather choke to death on my own blood,” Ash says. He’s looking away from Eiji and Eiji decides to stare at his shoes for a moment. This makes him stumble.

“Look at me,” Ash says, and suddenly, jade green eyes are staring into Eiji’s. Eiji thinks it’s the most honest Ash has been with him in years.They continue their waltz, Ash’s hand still gripped tightly in his—they spin, they step, and when the song ends, so do they.

When they slow, Ash’s hands gently cup Eiji’s face. Ash’s lips are soft against Eiji’s chapped ones. Their noses press together and Eiji feels safer than he’s ever felt before. He forgets the world surrounding him as his face is held by Ash’s palms. When they pull away, Ash leaves their foreheads connected. 

“It’s getting late,” Eiji says, voice breathy.

“I know.”

“You’ll need to go back soon”

“I know.”

“I’ll see you.”

“At the next ball?”

“Always.”

Eiji predicted it years ago, but who knew he’d go at the age of nineteen? Especially to another servant? In reality, he’s not very surprised. Like he said, he predicted it years ago. Eiji doesn’t know if the knife has struck anywhere vital as he makes his way to where he knows Ash’s room is. He knows the movement isn’t helping his blood loss. He hasn’t taken the knife out. It had been one of the kitchen boys who had stabbed him and whispered viciously in Eiji’s ear that Ash was his. Eiji slides against the frame of Ash’s door and bangs his fist on it as hard as he can. 

He doesn’t really remember the rest.

He wakes up in a bed, more luxurious than the one he is used to. The light is so bright it’s disorientating. There’s a figure in the corner, sitting in a chair. They look like they’re reading. Eiji makes a noise.

“You’re awake.” It’s Ash. He sounds relieved. 

“Yes,” Eiji says, trying to sit up. His abdomen burns.

“Don’t move too much, you don’t want to reopen the wound,” Ash says, gently helping Eiji raise himself. He’s wearing glasses.

“I didn’t know you wore glasses.” 

“That’s what you're focused on?”

“What else should I be focused on?”

“Eiji, you almost died,” Ash says. He sounds upset.

“But I’m alive. I’m in front of you. And you have glasses,” Eiji says, a smile on his face. Ash gives him a slight smile, huffing slightly. He leans down, pulling Eiji’s head down to his forehead.

“I’m glad you’re alive.”

**Author's Note:**

> follow me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/enbykozume_/) and [tumblr](https://bloodyknuckles.tumblr.com/)


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